Since I got married, I have been unable to stick to blogging daily probably because of all the transitions happening here and there. It took me a month to get back to writing, but since then, it was a painful slog.
I tried to drag myself into an empty draft, recalling all the habits I had built from blogging daily over the past three years, such as reading. I immersed myself back into finishing one book after another because you cannot pour from an empty cup, right?
But then, making time to think and write felt challenging to come by.
I do not always seem to have the time but in retrospect, I’ve already spent so much time in front of my glowing screen. The only difference was I was mindlessly consuming stuff, allowing myself to be pacified by algorithm-driven recommendations (because the engineered algorithm knows how to soothe this baby into numbness, scrolling her life away, dreaming about the things that could be but not doing anything about it, while enjoying the dopamine hits from wide-eyed unsuspecting animals and comical skits).
So, I decided to strip away convenient access to the social media platforms I subscribed to, uninstalling them from my phone to add the friction of logging in via browser. I have done this many times—staying away from social media and then hoping again that everything will be okay when I go back—like an unhealthy relationship you keep coming back to.
It started to feel like a love-hate relationship.
I even have to remind myself that the voices I genuinely care about can be reached directly—through direct messaging or face-to-face meetups—without visiting the noisy and often angry online feeds.
I don’t have to know what an acquaintance did for summer.
And just like when you free up memory space from your RAM, I felt like I now have all the time I could spare since I don’t spend much time on social media anymore.
So, after the day’s work, I can now dedicate time to reading books and commit to blogging daily.
jessa 